Rache
by NyteMan
Summary: Post-GK2: Gabriel investigates his family's past to combat an age-old evil.
1. Chapter 1

Rache A Gabriel Knight Fan Fiction ****

By NyteMan

Chapter 1

"...and when you decide which company will get the rights for 'The Mutilation Killings' you will have to assign-" Harald Übergrau was saying.

Glassy-eyed as he was becoming, Gabriel was actually starting to get used to the tedium of working with lawyers and agents for his best-selling works of fiction.

_The Voodoo Murders_ had gotten as high as 7th on the New York Times fiction list, and his newest work had over 200,000 copies reserved in the first month of its announcement in the publishers' journals. The work was now being done to set up German distribution of the novel. There was a lot of interest in it due to the topicality of the subject. "Harry...slow down a sec." 

Gabriel shook his head to clear it and then looked at Übergrau. Harry was extremely excited, and it took Gabriel back to the early days of the previous case. Harry had been so excited to be helping with the book, Gabriel almost felt like a celebrity. 

"I know you mean well...but I'll be honest. You might as well be speaking German. I don't get all this legal jargon and I never will. I'll tell you what...you tell me your opinions and I'll say yes or no." 

Gabriel smiled. "I trust you to take care of the Ritter interests - you did it for free when we couldn't pay you jack - and I trust you to take care of this."

Harry smiled, and Gabriel knew he had said the right things. For some reason (probably German efficiency, Gabriel mused), Harry seemed to have an inferiority complex when it came to working with Gabriel...very nervous and careful. Of course, Gabriel hadn't ever seen him with any of the other clients, so he had no way to compare. Still, Harry did a great job with everything and could definitely be trusted, and that's exactly what Gabriel wanted. 

"Gut. Then we'll be in touch when we get some prospective distributors for Germany." Gabriel nodded his agreement and then got up to leave. 

"Harry, I appreciate all you've done." He held his hand out to the sandy-haired man, and Harry smiled and accepted the handshake. "I'll talk to you later."

Gabriel took his leave of the man and made his way to the hallway leading to the lobby of the firm's office. As he approached the doorway to the lobby, he heard a familiar voice. Where had he heard it before? A smooth, German voice, purring but with just a bit of aggression seeping out of it...

Gabriel froze on the spot. He knew that voice. _Damn_, he thought. _I guess I wasn't gonna go too long without having to run into one of these guys. Hell, they own half of Munich, probably..._ He steeled himself and walked through the doorway. There was a stylishly-dressed man with a medium build, close-cropped grey hair and goatee, small gold earring in his left ear, with a purring deep voice, talking to Übergrau's secretary, Frau Hoblund. She was buying the entire act. 

"Herr Preiss?" Gabriel smiled his bravest smile, and walked forward with his hand extended. Preiss looked up, almost surprised, but his lawyer's face betrayed no such emotion. Instead, he gave Gabriel the somewhat disturbing smile that had so unnerved him all those months ago. "Hell, guess I should of expected to run into you around here sometime!" 

Gabriel was fumbling for something to say to him, habitually falling into his good-ol-boy routine that so often worked to draw people off-guard. 

"Herr Knight? What a pleasant surprise! I don't think I've seen you since...since the last hunt, the one where Von Zell disappeared and you were injured." He paused, his piercing eyes looking directly into Gabriel's. "What was it that happened to you? Von Aigner was the only one up when you and the Baron disappeared so suddenly. He said you were bleeding heavily." 

Preiss's eyes were casting the same spell on Gabriel that they did during their only serious conversation months ago, during the Mutilation Killings investigation. Gabriel was feeling extremely nervous, but he stammered out a story - not altogether a lie but not a complete truth, either. 

"It's kind of funny, Herr Preiss. I was talking to Friedrich - the Baron - and he mentioned that we would be riding horses to hunt. Well, we don't do much horseback hunting in the states, so I asked him to give me some pointers. We had gone out for a lesson, and wouldn't you know, I screwed up and fell off the horse. Fell right on a broken branch, too...kinda tore up my thigh. Friedrich took me in to the hospital and that's all I know." Gabriel's facial expression was remarkably calm, he thought, but he could feel his face and ears turning very red. "Kinda embarrassing, isn't it?" he stammered, hoping that Preiss would take that as the reason for his ruddy pallor. 

Preiss looked deeply at Gabriel, who began to feel as if his soul was being taken apart. After a moment of this close scrutiny, Preiss frowned at him momentarily. Gabriel felt a wave of relief, and then felt something vibrating slightly around his neck. He fought the impulse to turn and look, wanting to seem very comfortable in front of Preiss. 

Preiss smirked slightly. "I am intrigued, Herr Knight. More so than when we first met... I am intrigued." Preiss turned his gaze to Frau Hoblund and smiled almost imperceptibly, to which she blushed fully. He once again looked at Gabriel, nodded, and walked out of the office.

"Whew! That boy gives me the willies," Gabriel said out loud. Frau Hoblund didn't understand his words, but the meaning of the statement was clear to her. She smiled slightly while letting go a sigh, glanced at Gabriel, and returned to her work. 

Gabriel quickly stepped outside the office and felt the back of his neck. "What was that vibrating...?" he mumbled to himself as his hand probed along the back of his neck. As he determined the source of the vibration, he pulled on the chain holding the Ritter Talisman in place around his neck, taking it off to examine it. 

It was humming smoothly in his hand. 

* * *

"I'm telling you, Gracie, it was HUMMING!" Gabriel had his cell phone out and was talking animatedly into it. The cell phone was one of Gabriel's concessions to Grace - after the last case she wanted to make sure she had a way to keep in the loop. "I could feel it while that creepy son-of-a- bitch was staring at me! It never did that when I was chasing Von Zell around the woods, or even when Tetelo was trying to attack us!"

"Gabriel, I believe you, but I've been entering all of your ancestors' journals into that new computer system my brother is programming and I'm telling you that so far there's no record of it ever humming!" Grace was getting a bit animated herself. 

She had asked her brother to set up a database system to hold all the information from the Schattenjäger journals. Gabriel's natural dislike of machines put him against the idea at first, but Grace's practicality, as well as her argument that someone had better copy the documents before they totally disintegrated from age, won the day. And Gabriel was glad it had - once he had gotten over the sting of losing an argument to Grace, the common sense of her plan made sense to him. Not that he was ever going to tell Grace that, of course. And as long as he wasn't the one who had to use it...

"Hell, maybe this is one of those things that Wolfgang was supposed to tell me about...I mean, this thing didn't come with an instruction manual!" Gabriel was turning the Talisman over in his hand nervously. He was almost afraid to put it back on. "Maybe they never talked about it because they just accepted it as the way this thing works sometimes? I mean, I'm the first Schattenjäger who ever had to resort to on-the-job training, right?"

"I suppose that's a possibility, but you'd think it would have been mentioned at least once! I've gotten through a couple hundred years worth of Schattenjäger history and it hasn't been mentioned yet..." 

Grace just wasn't going to give this one up, was she? 

"Okay, so it's not mentioned in the journals. But aren't there a hell of a lot more books in the library than just my ancestors' journals?" Gabriel was getting exasperated. This was just another example of how he felt that he was dropped into a role for which he wasn't ready. Though he wanted more than anything to perform it admirably, he often felt as though his ancestors were making up for his grandfather's abandonment of the family calling by ganging up on him. 

"I found all that stuff out about the Tetelo voodoo cult in there, and you used it to brush up on your Ludwig, so doesn't it stand to reason that somewhere in there is a scroll, a book, hell...even a damned middle ages sticky-note that tells us what the hell this means? You found that letter from Christian von Ritter to Ludwig that set you off on your tour of Bavaria, couldn't there be something in one of the journals somewhere like that?"

Gabriel was reaching now...but something about the feeling he got when talking to Preiss made him think that there was something more going on than just Preiss's capacity for creeping him out. 

Grace sighed heavily, trying to calm herself down. Gabriel could be so annoying when he got like this. "Well, I'm trying to be as thorough as possible with this recording of your family's history, but it takes time! You have a big library here, Gabriel! Look at it this way...I'm bound to find something pertinent in one of the journals before 1693, when Gunter Ritter died. He was the one who lost it to Tetelo, and it makes sense that none of them are going to talk about how well it works after him, right?"

Gabriel's eyebrows perked up a bit. "Right...so Wolfgang might not have known anything about the Talisman, except for what it looks like! But he should still have known how it was meant to be used, shouldn't he? I mean, the tradition of ordaining and training a new Schattenjäger was pretty strict, from what I've been able to pick up." _Not that I've been able to take advantage of any of that_, thought Gabriel. "And in case the Talisman ever was recovered by one of them, they should sure know how to use it, right?" 

"Hmmm...good point," Grace grudgingly accepted. "Okay, I'll keep my eyes open, and make sure my brother does, too."

"Thanks, Gracie. And thank your brother again for me, will you? Seeya." 

Gabriel clicked the hang-up button on the cell phone and let it fall into his jacket pocket.

* * *

Gabriel saw himself riding down the sidewalk on a bike with training wheels...he remembered this sidewalk from his childhood. It was a very odd sensation, as if he was an eavesdropper on his own life. He was floating above his young self, a disembodied spirit unable to act, only able to observe. He was trying to remember what was going on but couldn't. It was as if he could only remember what was happening to him as it occurred to the child he was watching. 

Except... there was a sense of great dread that was coursing through him, as if he wanted to reach out and stop young Gabriel from moving so that he wouldn't have to relive what was happening in front of him. 

As the young Gabriel passed it, he recalled the big crack that once knocked him off his bike as he hit it, skinning his knee. How he had cried when it happened, until his mother came out and kissed it better. Now he was passing the brick-edged sidewalk leading up to the house with the wicker furniture on the front porch, where Gran's neighbors lived. 

There was the crabapple tree that he used to climb when he was pretending to be King Kong, and there was the abandoned shed he used to hide in when he wanted to be alone with his reading. 

Now he remembered this day...his daddy had promised that he would take the training wheels off Gabriel's bike when he got back from the art show with mommy. Gabriel was so excited...he wanted to drive a motorcycle when he got old enough. 

He was tearing up and down the sidewalk in front of Gran's house and screaming "vroom-vroom" at the top of his lungs, wishing that daddy would come home. It may have annoyed the neighbors, but to Gran, Gabriel could do no wrong.

There was something else about this day...the adult Gabriel couldn't quite remember it. Something he didn't want to remember...a feeling nagging at the back of his mind.

"GABRIEL!" Gran was calling him. She stood on the porch of the old house, holding a glass of lemonade and shading her eyes to see where he'd flown off to. A smile crossed her face as she saw young Gabriel playing.

"Here, Gran!" young Gabriel yelled back. He spun around on the bike and careened down the sidewalk again toward Gran's front porch. A glass of lemonade made by Gran was such a treat! Gran made the best lemonade in New Orleans...

At that moment, a loud screeching sound was heard...it sounded like the sound effects they used in cartoons. Gran switched her gaze away from Gabriel and focused it down the street, toward the source of the sound. A sudden chill ran through the adult Gabriel's spine.

_The horror...the horror...it's coming..._ Young Gabriel sped off on his bike toward the source of the sound. A growing feeling of overwhelming dread continued to wash over him, a feeling that his young body and soul wouldn't recognize, but that the older, more experienced psyche of a Schattenjäger would know instantly. _No...stay away...don't want to see..._

"Gabriel! Come back...wait for Gran..." Gran's voice faded off as Gabriel sped away toward the source of the sound...it was as if the youngster was beginning to feel the anguish that was pouring over the adult Gabriel. Tears were beginning to stream down young Gabriel's face as he leaned over the handlebars, willing his body forward faster than his young legs pumping at the pedals of his bicycle could take him. He glanced back briefly and saw Gran running after him, calling his name.

_No...stay back...don't look..._

The disembodied Gabriel could only observe with horror as his young self rounded the corner at the end of Gran's street and came to a screeching halt as his innocent eyes were forever changed. A green VW Beetle was crumpled against the stone wall of the house on the corner. Across the street, a young woman sat next to a ten-speed bicycle, frozen in fear. Young Gabriel threw his bike down and ran up to the window of the crumpled car. Of course, Gabriel recognized the car.

It was his parents' car.

He stared through his young self's eyes at the broken picture of his father behind the wheel. Blood was flowing freely from an open wound in the center of his father's forehead. The head itself was hanging at a sickening angle, the blue eyes still open and staring ahead blankly. His mother lay slumped across his father's lap limply, a similar wound in her head. Her blood flowed over his father's pant leg and onto the seat and floor. On the dashboard in front of them were bloodstains, indicating where they had struck it.

Gabriel's eyes wandered away from the image of his parents in the front seat to the back seat, where the painting his father had wanted to sell was sitting. It was undamaged. Through the broken window, Gabriel was able to push it back against the seat and see it - the grotesque image of a skull with snakes crawling through its eye sockets. Gabriel was unable to take his eyes off the painting. Somehow, even at this young age, the young Gabriel knew that the painting was a harbinger of sorts, warning him of the future...

Gran rounded the corner and screamed with agony at the site of her son and his young wife in the crumpled metal coffin. She fell to her knees, hands over her face with only her eyes showing bloodshot and tear-drenched, wailing into her hands. Gabriel heard her, but his eyes were fixed on the painting...

"Gabe?" Young Gabriel heard his name being called and looked toward the source of the voice. It wasn't Gran, she was still weeping loudly. Could it be...

"Daddy?"

"Gabe? I feel so far away...can't get to you. What's happening? I feel...trapped..." Gabriel couldn't hear his father's voice but he could feel it somehow, as if his father was talking right into his mind.

"What's going on, Daddy?" Gabriel was starting to weep now, tears rolling down his face.

"Gabe...you have to help...I don't understand what's happening...find the painting...you must find the painting...that'll have the answer..." His father's lips were not moving, but Gabriel knew that the voice was his father's.

Although it had been nearly 30 years since Gabriel's father died, he would never forget that voice. Philip Knight had a voice of implied confidence, though a wavering uncertainty would crop up now and again, as though he felt he should be doing something but didn't know what it was. It was a tormented voice, one looking for control in his life but not knowing how to achieve it, not knowing how control was lost in the first place. 

"Daddy?" Young Gabriel's voice was quaking, tears pouring out now. "It's right back here..." Gabriel grasped the painting's frame and held it tightly through the car's broken window. "Daddy?" The boy sobbed quietly, wishing to hear his father's voice one more time.

* * *

Gabriel woke with a shout. His sheets were soaked and his heart was pounding a fierce staccato beat. He sat and breathed deeply for a minute, then got up and quickly made his way into the library. _Gotta get this dream on paper before I forget it. These things have been too damned prophetic to ignore anymore._


	2. Chapter 2

Rache A Gabriel Knight Fan Fiction ****

By NyteMan

Chapter 2

"GABRIEL! What the hell are you doing?" Grace stood in the doorway of the library at Schloss Ritter, her jaw hanging open at the mess on the floor. Books, scrolls, everything was in upheaval on the shelves, the floor, and the desk. Gabriel was sitting in the middle of it all with bloodshot eyes, tangled morning hair, in a T-shirt and baggy boxer shorts. He was poring through the old tomes frantically, a sheaf of papers sitting in front of him.

"Mornin', Grace." Gabriel's accent was more pronounced when he was tired, it seemed. He smiled groggily at her and looked back down to the subject of his curiosity, a large book with yellowed pages. "You know, a good serious reader could just get lost in here. If he spoke about twelve languages, that is..." Gabriel trailed off as he came upon a passage that grabbed his interest.

Grace was torn - she was partially happy that Gabriel was taking an interest in research, but if messes like this were going to be the result of his undertakings into the literary world, she wanted no part of it. Of course, part of her was bemused at the thought of him trying to research without her, while yet another part was hurt at the same thought.

"Is there something specific you're looking for? Maybe I've already come across it." She sat down next to him, attempting to ignore the mess that she was going to end up cleaning up for him. He'd offer to help, of course, but do a piss-poor job of it and end up frustrating her attempts to return to the semblance of order that she had created in her cataloging and copying of the Schattenjäger library. Perhaps by giving him a hand she could get him out in a hurry!

"Well, here's the deal: I had a dream last night that I wrote down - " 

Gabriel gestured at the sheaf of papers in front of him without looking up " - and I'm trying to look up anything that talks about seeing relatives in dreams, or spirits talking to you in dreams, etc."

"Well, why don't you think back to your last case?" Grace smirked, picking up the papers to read them. "Have you forgotten already? Ludwig was trying to talk to you all along in that one." She started to read the papers and froze. 

"Y'see? Not exactly the same situation, is it." Gabriel grimaced a bit as he pondered the dream again. "That's almost EXACTLY what I remember about my parents' accident. The Ludwig dreams were always very symbolic...Freud's kinda stuff. But I remember the crash, I remember seeing the painting in the back seat, and I remember Gran's crying. I don't remember hearing Dad's voice, though...that was new. Is someone trying to tell me something?"

Grace read the rest of the dream and looked up to Gabriel. "This painting sounds familiar. It's not the one you sold to Bruno, is it?" 

Gabriel snapped his fingers. "Yeah - that's where it went. I was trying to think why it seemed so familiar to me."

"I told you not to sell it, didn't I?" Grace looked annoyed at him. "You never listen to me-"

"Gracie, if I hadn't sold that painting, we never would have solved that case, would we?" Gabriel finally gave her the attention she wanted, looking up at her. "It's not like I had any money then..."

"Well, you could have asked me, couldn't you?" Grace's arms were crossed in annoyance. "I would have helped."

"Grace - as you kept pointing out to me, I hadn't paid you since you started at St. George's. Where were you going to get the money?" 

"From the money I was using to live down there - as you just said, you hadn't paid me for a while!" Grace looked annoyed again. "My folks gave me some money to live on, and I had worked at that library before I started at your store."

"Well, what's done is done, so let's think about what needs to be done now," Gabriel sputtered, trying to put the issue of his selling the painting to rest. "It looks like I need to get it back, right? I mean, that's what Daddy was saying in the dream."

"But that painting was just a skull and some snakes, right? How are you supposed to find any meaning in that?" Grace looked dubious. "I think it's something else."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, but I just don't think that painting holds any meaning. I mean, your Grandmother said that your father was tortured by dreams his whole life and that painting was how he dealt with them."

"Grace, that's the whole point! My father was tortured by dreams, but ignored them. He didn't know any better." Gabriel was getting incensed. "I had nightmares, too, and look where they led! I used my books to deal with my dreams, and all my dreams have led to cases. My father did the same thing, only he didn't have any cases to work on because his form of expression didn't require any research. Also, he didn't have a partner with the word 'research' stamped on her genetic code, like I do!" Grace blushed a bit...half out of flattery and half out of annoyance. "If Uncle Wolfgang had found my father first, then he might have been the Schattenjäger, right?" 

"Maybe..." stammered Grace.

"No maybe about it! I'm booking a flight to New Orleans right now!" Gabriel smiled. "Wanna come?"

Grace stuttered for a moment. She was stunned that Gabriel actually invited her along for the trip, but after a moment she became annoyed. Of course he did...no danger involved in this one.. Then she remembered what Mrs. Smith had said, months ago, about Gabriel needing to fight his own battles. "No, that's okay. I think we'd be better off if I stayed here and worked on the database entries. Besides, if you come across something with the painting, you might need me to look something up back here."

"Good thinking, Gracie." Gabriel sat back from the book, fatigue finally taking its toll on him. "Hmmm...now that I think about it, the travel agency probably won't be open for a couple hours. Maybe we should go get some breakfast first."

"Better idea, Knight," Grace answered with a smirk, "you can help me clean up this mess you made!"

Gabriel looked around the library, realizing for the first time what a disaster area he had created. "Oh, damn..."

* * *

At the sound of the knocking, Rebecca Knight made her way to the front door and opened it. A tall, roguishly handsome man with wild reddish-blond hair stood smiling at her.

"Hi, Gran."

"Gabriel! Oh, I'm so glad you're finally home!" Gran threw her arms around Gabriel and the two embraced warmly. "How have you been? All cramped up in a drafty old castle...come out here and have some molasses pie! I whipped up a couple just in case you were hungry when you got in!" She sat him down on the couch and went out to the small kitchen to bring the promised treat. 

"The castle's not all that bad, Gran. We've made lots of improvements. It's a lot cozier than it was when I first got there." Gran brought the pie to the living room and handed him a plate. "Thanks, Gran. Boy, have I missed this!" Gabriel dug into the pie and obviously relished every bite.

"So how are things in Germany? How's that Grace doing? I like her, Gabriel..." Gran's eyes were sparkling as she watched the face of her grandson turn bright red.

"Gran! I told you there's nothing going on there!" Gabriel looked at his grandmother with great exasperation. "She just works with me and we're friends!"

"Yes, dear. Of course." Gran still had the sparkle in her eyes but dropped the topic. "When does the new book come out?"

"Couple of months. Should do pretty well, I think. 'Specially in Germany. Seems like there should be a lot of interest, seeing as it happened in Munich." He took another bite of the luscious pie.

"Oh, Gabriel, that last book of yours nearly scared the devil out of me. Is this one going to be any less gruesome?" Gran had read The Voodoo Murders but was among its greater critics. "You have so much of your father in you. So much talent, but such a dark use of it. Have you tried writing something more uplifting?"

"I tried writing everything, Gran. This is the only thing I'm any good at, it seems." Gabriel tried to look positively on the subject but he knew Gran wasn't disapproving, she just didn't like the idea of such dark thoughts coursing through her grandson's mind.

Gran sighed. She smiled bravely, but Gabriel could see that she was troubled by the presence of the darkness in her family's lives. "Gran, you don't have to worry about me. I'm the happiest I've ever been. My books are selling, I'm learning about my family, I have wonderful friends, and most important I've got the prettiest belle in New Orleans watching out for me!" Gran blushed. Gabriel knew she liked to protest being called that but that inside she loved to hear it.

"Well, the important thing is that you're happy." Gran smiled. She noticed that Gabriel had finished his piece of pie and quickly served him another. Gabriel smiled. Gran would never change.

"Can I ask you some questions about Daddy, Gran?" Gran's smile faded slowly, but she forced it back in an effort not to appear uncomfortable with Gabriel's question.

"Of course, dear. What would you like to know?"

"Well, when he was painting, especially the pictures you didn't like as much, the gruesome ones, did he ever mention what made him want to paint them?" Gabriel paused. He didn't want to disturb Gran, but he had to know something. "There's one he did that has a snake crawling around in a skull, the one that I eventually took. Did he ever tell you about what it was that inspired him?"

"Well, Gabriel, I really don't know. All I can tell you is what I've told you before. He, like you, and like your grandfather, have always had such awful dreams. You seem to have gotten better, but your father and your grandfather never really did." Gran smiled a bit. "I suppose it's because you got back in touch with your roots, now, don't you? Of course, there's a lot your grandfather never wanted to tell me about his upbringing...never quite figured it out, myself." Gran looked up at Gabriel, hinting that she really wanted to pump him for information but was too polite. 

A prickly feeling of extreme discomfort ran down Gabriel's back as Gran made this request. He knew she wouldn't be able to understand how he had taken up the mantle of the Schattenjäger and willingly threw himself into harm's way. Or maybe she would...he remembered how fondly she recalled the days of her youth, when St. John's Eve mass was celebrated in New Orleans. Perhaps some of that religious nostalgia would rub off on her in regards to this Schattenjäger business.

"Gran? Remember how you were telling me that sometimes Granddaddy used to seem like he was struggling with something he ought to be doing?" Gran's eyes perked up as she listened to him. "Well, you were right - he was struggling. Granddaddy's family were hereditary hunters of evil."

Gran's eyes narrowed slightly. Gabriel wasn't sure what this meant. "Do you mean that you're some kind of private detective?" asked Gran. 

"...Of a sort, Gran. But I hunt real evil. Let's put it this way. Not all of The Voodoo Murders was a story. A lot of that voodoo stuff was real, and I helped hunt down the people who did it. Mosely helped, of course, but I had to do a lot of research. You probably remember, it was during the whole voodoo thing that I first learned about Germany and the Ritters, right?" Gran nodded as she recalled that period. "Well, Uncle Wolfgang - I told you about him - was the Schattenjäger before me. He sort of passed the title on to me...you know?"

Gran nodded her assent. "It sounds almost like a religious order, Gabriel! I never expected any of the Knight men to be a priest of any kind!" Gran blushed a bit as Gabriel caught on to the remark.

Laughing, he hugged her. "Neither did I, Gran. Neither did I."

* * *

"Well, you could knock me over with a feather! Gabriel Knight, how in the world are you! Sid, come on out and see who's here!" The tall black-haired man in the white jacket and bermuda shorts came out from behind the counter of the flower store and went to give Gabriel a hug. Gabriel backed away slightly, his body language implying that he wasn't comfortable with being embraced by the man. "Well, a guy can try, can't he, Knight?" Bruno smiled at the discomfort of his visitor.

"Hi Bruno. Long time no see." Gabriel held out his hand to be shaken and Bruno accepted. As they shook hands, a shorter, pudgier man came out of the back. He wore a similar white jacket - almost a short lab coat, khaki pants, and his diminishing hair was pulled back in a ponytail similar to Bruno's but definitely grayer. He held a pair of pruning shears in his left hand.

"Knight - what brings you back into town? Heard you were livin' in Germany or somethin'!" Sid smiled and held out his hand, which Gabriel took.

"Oh, not too much. Actually, I'm back to see you guys." Bruno smirked in disbelief, but Sid looked at him seriously.

"Really? What can we do you for?" Gabriel smiled as Bruno put his arm around Sid, and continued.

"Remember a few years ago when I sold you that painting my daddy did, Bruno? The one with the snakes and the skull? You had been pestering me about it for months, and I finally gave in?" Gabriel saw from the smirk on Bruno's face that he did. He wasn't prepared for the look of distaste on Sid's face, though.

"I sure do - I'm just glad I came to you before you had that god-awful book of yours published! Had to get to you while you still needed the money, and I did!" Bruno was obviously very proud of himself for that.

"So," Gabriel continued, "do you still have it? Can I buy it back from y'all?" Gabriel thought he was in for a round of heavy bargaining by the somewhat evil look creeping across Bruno's face and was surprised by what he heard next.

"Sure - we'll sell it back to you for what we paid you originally." Sid had spoken before Bruno could get a word out at all. Bruno's head swung around and he stared unbelievingly at Sid.

"Si-i-i-d! Bruno drew out his companion's name like a small child might with a parent.

"Bruno, you know I've never liked that painting. No offense meant, Gabe," Sid added, then turned back to Bruno and wagged his finger at him. "You kept hassling him until he gave in because he needed the money. That's no way to treat a friend!" Sid went around behind the counter and picked up a cloth-covered frame. He returned to the front and handed it to Gabriel, who had retrieved one hundred dollars from his wallet and handed it to Sid in exchange. Gabriel's tongue was uncharacteristically tied.

Sid moved closer to Gabriel and whispered in his ear, "Don't sweat it, Gabe. Bruno must have missed the gay gene that contains artistic taste." Gabriel almost burst out laughing, but thanked the two men and walked out. Bruno's whining voice followed him out the door and part way down Bourbon Street.

Gabriel lay in bed in his old studio apartment behind St. George's Books. The old painting was behind the counter of the store, behind the curtain. His eyes closed, and he recalled that the last time he had slept in that bed he had been having the dreams of Tetelo, Malia, and the Voodoo Hounfour under Jackson Square. "Malia..." That was a name he hadn't thought of for quite a while...

Gabriel drifted off into a dream. He was drifting bodiless again, this time over a much newer looking house than he had seen in the previous dream that had led him back to New Orleans. A much younger, possibly mid-20s Gran was sitting on the front steps, sipping a glass of lemonade and playing with a toddler in a playpen at the foot of the steps. 

Gabriel had seen old pictures of his grandmother before, but was almost flabbergasted at how alive and vibrant she looked. She's really had a hard life, and you can see it in her eyes from then to now. She has a sparkle in her eyes now that almost doesn't exist any more! He sighed, inaudibly to those around him. I guess seeing all the men in your life disappear can do that to you.

He focused his eyes on the toddler, realizing who it was after a moment. The resemblance to his own baby pictures was amazing. This was his father! Gabriel hovered down next to Gran, gawking in amazement at the two of them. It was one thing to see lots of pictures of people at a young age, but to actually experience them was totally different.

Gran was "coochie-cooing" his father who was gurgling and laughing in return. Gabriel was laughing silently along with the two of them, not used to such a domestic scene. Is this the kind of life I missed by not having parents around? He watched his father's innocent face look around at all the wonderment of the neighborhood, until the toddler was looking straight at Gabriel. Gabriel's heart skipped a beat when the toddler locked his eyes on him.

GABRIEL. REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU. THE PAINTING HOLDS THE ANSWER... Gabriel drew back as the toddler went back to his play. He hadn't so much heard the message from his father as felt it - almost as if his father had placed the thought in his mind, in that tortured yet strong voice Gabriel remembered. If Gabriel had been corporeal, he would be in a cold sweat right now.

At that moment, Gabriel heard a loud crack from the back of the house, then a thump and a shout. Gran looked up from playing with his father and muttered "Harrison?" She picked up the child, bundled him into her arms, and walked, hesitantly, to the back of the small house. Gabriel watched her walk, still somewhat frozen by the experience of hearing his father's voice and the piercing stare that his infant equivalent had given him.

She rounded the side of the house and immediately let out a horrible scream. His father immediately began to emit a wailing cry, and Gran fell to her knees and wailed along with him.

Gabriel immediately whisked himself off to the back of his house to view the commotion. When he got there, he was taken aback. A man lay on the concrete patio in the backyard, his neck at a gruesome angle. A small pool of dark blood was forming around the back of his head. The look of surprise on the man's face was unmistakable, and the resemblance to his father and himself was as unmistakable. This was Harrison Knight, also known as Heinz Ritter - Gabriel's grandfather.

A rope was tied around Harrison's waist, and a broken piece of wood was tied to the other end. Obviously, it was a safety rope, designed to prevent what had just happened. Gabriel looked up and saw another man, staring down, aghast at the sight below him. Gran continued to scream, accompanied by Gabriel's father's frightened wailing. 

"Gabriel?" Gabriel spun around, looking for the source of the voice. _Can't be...I'm not even a consideration here, no one could possibly know me! _

"Who..." Gabriel started. 

"Gabriel? You can hear me?" The voice was somewhat like his father's voice, but with a thick German accent. Gabriel spun around, somehow instinctively looking back at the body of his grandfather.

"Granddaddy?" Gabriel's mouth was agape, but he continued to listen. 

Unlike most of his dreams, it seemed as though he had some control over his actions in this one, instead of the impression he normally got of being forced to watch his own actions as in a movie. "What's going on?"

"Gabriel, you must listen to me. Find my book, Gabriel. Read it!" His grandfather's voice seemed to be fading out. 

"What book, Granddaddy? I don't..." Gabriel was getting frantic.

"My book, Gabriel. You know the one...it helped you once...it can help you again..." The voice drifted off into the cacophony of anguish created by Gran's screams and his father's crying...


	3. Chapter 3

Rache A Gabriel Knight Fan Fiction ****

By NyteMan

Chapter 3

"Hi again, Gran," said Gabriel, standing once again in the door to Gran's house. "Mind if I pick your brain for a while?" He felt very nervous standing there, knowing that he was about to force her to recall painful events again.

It was as if Gran seemed to detect the hesitation that Gabriel was exuding, and wordlessly smiled lightly and stood aside for him to come in. "Now you take a load off, sit down." Gran picked up a tray and put it down in front of him on a coffee table. "I was just about to have a glass of iced tea and read for a while. Care to join me?" Gabriel nodded his assent and Gran began to pour the cool liquid into tall tumbler-type glasses.

Gabriel was silent while she poured, and the silence made her nervous enough that she spilled a little bit off the side of one glass, the brown liquid splashing onto the tray and spattering onto the table a bit. "Oh, no...let me get something to wipe this up - "

"Allow me, Gran," said Gabriel, taking the pitcher from her and setting it down as she hurried out to the kitchen to get a towel. Gabriel watched her as he poured the tea. Rebecca Knight was a very strong woman, to have gotten through the death of her husband, her only son and his beautiful wife; not to mention being able to let go as Gabriel went out into the world to live his life, a life she didn't totally understand but respected as his choice. Rebecca Wright should have been the heiress of some major family in New Orleans, but chose to marry the man she loved, a man with a curse. And she had never done anything to change things after the people she loved were gone.

"Gabriel? Are you all right, boy?" Gran was staring at him.

"Sorry, Gran, just a little lost in thought, you know?" Gran came and sat down next to him, mopping up the spill with the towel she'd retrieved.

"Gran, I have to ask you something I've never asked you before. I know it's hard for you, but I need to know about how Granddaddy died." Gabriel face flushed with emotion as Gran subtly but painfully paused in her movement. She quickly kept the towel moving, but it was obvious to Gabriel that she knew he had caught the reaction.

"Well, certainly, dear. It's odd that you asked that." Gran picked up the towel and set it aside, the table dried to her satisfaction. "I just had a dream about it last night. I suppose that's why I'm so jumpy today." Gran sighed. "I haven't dreamed about that in years. Must have been something I ate before bed..."

"Gran, YOU dreamed about it last night?" A thought occurred to Gabriel, and he steeled himself to ask Gran yet another painful question. "Let me ask you some questions, then..." Gabriel pulled out a sheaf of paper on which he had recorded this latest dream. Gran looked at him with an odd expression but said nothing.

"Okay, this dream you had - did it start with you playing with my daddy as a baby? He was in a playpen and you were both outside the house, on the front steps?" Gran turned white as Gabriel said this, but nodded her affirmation.

"Yes, boy! Oh, don't you know how to surprise an old woman!" Gran almost chuckled lightly, and probably would have had not the topic been so personally traumatic. Gabriel smiled, and Gran smiled back. This is going to be okay, thought Gabriel.

"So Granddaddy did fall off the roof of this house? What was he doing, working on the roof shingles or something?" 

"Yes, he was up there fixing them. You know how those afternoon thunderstorms get around here in June or so...and we wanted to make sure things stayed dry! He was up there fixing them with his friend Erich, and - "

"Erich? Who was Erich?" Gabriel remembered the other man on the roof looking down at his grandfather's limp body in the dream. 

"Oh, Erich Preiss, dear. He was a good friend of your grandfather's..." 

"PREISS?" Gabriel's mouth was hanging open. Is it possible? No, of course not, this was 50-some years ago, there's no way that Preiss could have... But Gabriel knew better. He may only have just finished his second Schattenjäger case, but he knew better. He only hoped that Grace had found something to help him. 

* * *

"Uh...excuse me. Are you open?...uh...never mind." A customer at St. George's Books popped his head through the door, saw the mess on the floor, and popped it right back out. 

Damn, thought Gabriel. A couple years ago I would have treated that guy like the king of Mardi Gras. Now I can't even be bothered with customers... Gabriel was searching through St. George's books with the same fervor and disregard for organization that had made Grace's anger rise a few days ago. 

"Shit...don't have the same resources here that we do in Rittersberg..."Gabriel was searching for anything that might explain the link between the dreams and the presence of another Preiss. He flipped through the few occult books that his store contained, but eventually threw up his hands. "Nothing...guess I'm gonna have to call Gracie."

He stood up and walked over to the phone, which was next to the cash register on the counter. Gabriel felt his pockets, looking for the small address book that contained the number for Schloß Ritter. "What the..." he started; the book was not in his pocket.

He looked down at the counter, wondering if he had set it down there before he began to ransack the store for information - nothing. He opened a drawer, wondering if he had set it there so he'd remember where it was later. "Boy, that was a great plan," he muttered to himself as he closed the drawer after a futile search. His eyes wandered back to the mess of books on the floor. "Must have fallen out of my pocket..."

As Gabriel was picking up the mess he'd made, looking for the address book as he went, he came across a book that was familiar to him: it was the Rada Drum code book that Grace had found for him during the Voodoo Murders case. A small piece of thin cardboard was sticking out of it - a business card? Curious, Gabriel pulled it out of the book and saw a familiar name:

__

Magentia Moonbeam  
Spirit Guide for Those Who Seek Answers

"You don't suppose..." Gabriel made his way back over the phone and made a call.

* * *

"Why, Mr. Knight! What a pleasant surprise!" Magentia Moonbeam was her normal resplendent self in her colorful voodooienne's garb. She wore a filmy, multi-layered and multicolored ankle-length skirt, a bright yellow blouse open to the waist with a pink and blue tie-dyed tank top underneath, and a multi-colored scarf held her hair in place. She gestured to the now familiar high-backed chair next to the crystal ball and across from the gilded cage that held her beloved serpent friend.

"So, how've you and Grimwald been, Magentia?" Gabe smiled, a bit uneasily but much less so than the first time he'd been in her shop. He'd seen a lot of different magic since then, and was much more accepting of it. Besides, Magentia's pleasant Kansas accent was a friendly departure from the harsh German accents he was getting used to. 

"We've been fine, Mr. Knight...may I call you Gabriel?" Magentia set down a tray with a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses, along with a small bowl containing lemon wedges. "Care for some?"

"Please!" Gabriel had been in Germany so long that he was unaccustomed to the heat and humidity of his native New Orleans. "And yes, call me Gabriel."

"Now," Magentia said, sitting across from him. "What seems to be troubling you, seeker?" She fell back into her "spiritual advisor" role very quickly, Gabriel noted. 

"Well, it's not a personal thing, exactly, though it kind of is..." 

Gabriel looked at Magentia sheepishly, then remembered that she was probably one of the most open people to what he wanted to talk about. 

"Is there any way for... say... if someone wanted to get hold of their ancestors, and I'm not talking about a seance, here, how would they do it?" Gabriel blushed a bit. He wasn't quite sure what he was trying to say, which made it very hard to clarify. "Let me explain." he started. 

He poured out the whole story of what had happened in the past few days, leaving out any reference to the mutilation killings. 

"...My goodness, Gabriel," remarked Magentia, her eyes now at a peak of openness after hearing the story. "You say this talisman was humming? May I see it?"

Gabriel hesitated momentarily, but took the talisman from around his neck and handed it to Magentia. The voodooienne took it and ran her pale fingers over it, not looking at it but staring off into the void.

"This is a strong force, Gabriel. You are fortunate to have this; it has protected you well and will continue to. I sense that it feels frustration at your inability to delve into its depths, but appreciation that you are trying to do so." Magentia continued to study it as Gabriel sat back.

_Its frustration? Its appreciation? She makes it sound like the thing is alive... _Gabriel smirked a bit.

Magentia handed it back to Gabriel, then sat back in her chair. "So," she asked, matter-of-factly, "have you ever seen the other one?"

"Uh...other one?" 

* * *

"That's right, Gracie. She asked me if I'd ever seen the 'other one', like there's two of these things!" Gabriel was jabbering into the phone like a monkey, his excitement about this case at a peak. "How come there's no record of there being two of them? Have you found anything in any of the journals about another Schattenjäger talisman?"

"No, nothing!" Grace was much more dubious of the prospect of another Schattenjäger talisman than Gabriel was. "Did your psychic friend tell you anything else?"

"Gracie, she's not a psychic friend. She helped me a lot with the Voodoo Murders investigation - she knows what she's talking about!" Gabriel took a deep breath - he knew he needed to calm down, but the idea of another Schattenjäger talisman was too great!

"Okay, Gabriel, I believe you and her. What exactly did she say?" Grace took a deep breath herself...not so much to calm down, but more to prepare herself to sort through what Gabriel was about to tell her to find the facts. 

"Well, she asks if me if I've ever seen the other one. I say 'Other one?' And she says 'Yes, this talisman obviously has a twin.' She could feel it, she said, as if part of it was somewhere else. " Gabriel swallowed. "That was all she could say about it. She said she didn't know any more than that."

"I don't know..." started Grace. "Why don't any of the journals mention a twin to the talisman? I mean, you'd think that somewhere in the 700 years we know of Schattenjäger history that there'd be mention of it somewhere."

"You're right, you would think that. Maybe we're the first to discover it?" Gabriel scratched his head. "I mean, for a long time the talisman was gone, and the other times it was well protected, so maybe no one ever let a genuine psychic get hold of it like I did."

"Good point. Well, I'll go over the early stuff again, and if I find anything I'll let you know." Grace sighed lightly. "So when you coming back to Germany?" 

"I've got a couple more things to find out in town, and then I'll be back." Gabriel smiled. "Talk to you later, Gracie. Thanks." He clicked the Hang button on his phone and slipped it into a pocket.

_Okay. Gotta find Grandpa's book, whatever that is, and figure out if there's a connection between this Erich Preiss and Herr Preiss in Germany. _Gabriel sighed. _Not too hard... _he smiled and walked back out to the store floor. 


	4. Chapter 4

Rache A Gabriel Knight Fan Fiction ****

By NyteMan

Chapter 4

For the first time since the case began, Gabriel was able to leave the scene of his searching for books almost exactly as he found it. Of course, this was mostly because he hadn't cleaned up St. George's since he ransacked it earlier looking for more dream information. Books and papers were still scattered all over the floor. 

Gabriel was once again deeply involved in the search for his grandfather's book. Luckily, he had already searched part of the seemingly vast expanse of volumes that the store contained, his last search interrupted by the discovery of Magentia Moonbeam's phone number. 

"Ah..." Gabriel pulled out a small black volume with handwritten poetry in it. The cheaply embossed cover had the name "Heinz Ritter" on it. He opened the book to a familiar poem...

_Drei Drachen kriechen in meinen Schlaf, die Seele woll'n sie lebendig zum Frass. Feurigen Atems, gespaltener Zunge geniessen sie jedes Mahl._

Gabriel shuddered a bit... his translation of the poem during the Voodoo Murders had clued him in to some of the horror that Harrison Knight was undergoing, and also reminded him of his pre-Schattenjäger days and the dreams he'd had, of dragons and snakes crawling over him. Those days were past, but the dreams he was having now were much more personal. 

Shaking his head, he took the book back into the small room that had served him so well as a studio/bedroom and laid down on the bed. Propping the sagging pillows behind his head, he took a look around him. 

His life had changed so much since the last time he'd peacefully laid in that bed. Trips to Germany, Voodoo cults, werewolves, dead kings, African ruins, and mysterious women were almost becoming old-hat for him. Lying in this room brought all that back into focus. 

Blinking his eyes, he picked up the book and began to read. Or rather, he began to skim, since he still couldn't read much German. Gerde had tried at one point to get him to take a class at a local college but Gabriel had fought it, remembering sourly the days when he had been forced to sit at a desk and learn things he didn't think he'd ever use. 

Many was the time that he'd been sent to the principal's office for ignoring his teachers and writing stories, stories about monsters, travel, magic, fantasy, whatever came to mind. His teachers had always told him to forget the fantastic, and to concentrate on the realistic. 

Gabriel smiled to himself: wouldn't they be surprised to know what he considered realistic now! 

"Crap - doing it again!" Research was not Gabriel's strong point, but he could do it when the subject was interesting. Otherwise he would start to fade off and daydream...much like he was doing now! Right now, reading his grandfather's German poetry and having it mean about as much as his old algebra books was not exacting qualifying as INTERESTING... 

Gabriel leafed through the book, trying to see if anything in it sparked his instinct at all. Poem after poem in the German language stared back at him, seeming to mock him. _Some Schattenjäger you are - you can't even read your forefathers' tongue!_ Gabriel shook his head again, closing the book and setting it down while he rubbed gently against the bridge of his nose in an attempt to focus. He picked up the book again, and for the first time, noticed that the first two pages of the book were stuck together. "Hmmmm.." 

Standing, Gabriel closed the book again, and walked over to his desk. In the drawer beneath the faded wood spots where his typewriter had once sat, Gabriel found an old table knife that he used as a letter opener and opened the poetry book to the offending pages. Slipping the knife's blade between them, and being careful not to damage the aging paper, he separated the clinging pages. Pulling the chair out from his desk, he sat and began to read the formerly concealed pages. They were in English, to Gabriel's surprise. 

__

To my son, Phillip,

This book is a record of my thoughts, impressions, and beliefs about the nature of the family into which you have been born. Since I left Bavaria, I have been recording my feelings and dreams in an attempt to purge them from my psyche, but now I see that this is not going to be possible. Someday, I shall be able to tell you about the yearning you have to be somewhere else, doing something that you feel to be right but unknown to you. I have attempted to remove us from that life, but I find that to be impossible now. Soon, I shall explain all to your mother so that we can return to the land that bore me and take up our proper positions as the Hunters of Shadow that the Ritters, and now the Knights, are destined to be. You shall be raised to learn of the responsibilities and duties of our ancestral vocation, and taught the use the tool that was given to us so many years ago but was lost. 

I will also tell you of the others, our ancestral nemesis. If we are the lion, they are the serpent. They share our power, but their use of it is selfish, while ours is to be used for the glory of God, and the good of his people. 

Remember the power of your ancestors, as they remember theirs. 

Your Father, 

Heinz

Gabriel was shaking as he looked at the date of the inscription to the poetry book - the same date as his grandfather had fallen from the roof of his house. He recalled the fateful letter from Christian von Ritter to King Ludwig. "Seems to run in the family... remind me never to write a letter to anyone ever again." 

* * *

"Aw, Christ," muttered Franklin Mosely as he heard the voice of the person on the other end of the phone. "Why couldn't you have just stayed in Germany?"

"Mostly, my man! How could you say such a thing after all we've been through?" Gabriel smiled at the discomfort in his friend's voice. Maybe it was mean, but Mosely always gave such a great reaction to the amount of teasing that Gabriel tossed his way that it was hard to quit. And it had been so long since they'd talked... 

"What do you need, Knight? I'm frickin' busy here, y'know?" Gabriel heard a deep sigh on the other end of the phone. "Those of us with a 9-to-5 need to put in the hours, unlike the 'book crowd' you seem to be part of these days." 

"Can I come down and talk to you for a bit?" Gabriel knew he was putting his friend out a bit. Mosely really was working hard to try to move up in the police force, and for all his whining about the hours he put in it was beginning to pay off. The Voodoo Murders investigation had made him noticed among the upper echelons of the New Orleans Police Department. This notice, however, made him all that much more busy as he was given more casework than ever before. 

"Shit, Knight! Yeah, I suppose, I got some lunchtime coming up here pretty soon, and the vultures should be taking a rest too, pretty soon." 

Gabriel could hear Mosely shift in his seat a bit. "Actually, I could do with getting out of the station for a piece. Wanna meet somewhere in about an hour or so?"

"Even better," said Gabriel. "Last time I was in there I almost slipped and fell on some doughnut glaze on the floor outside your office, and..." 

"Ease off, ya wanker! What say I see you at the Gumbo Shop in an hour? Better be your treat, moneybags," Mosely said. 

"You got it, bud." Gabriel smiled. "Always happy to support the fastest growing part of Louisiana... your waistline! Seeya in an hour." 

* * *

"Oh, man, that's good stuff!" Gabriel announced as he and Mosely sat back in their chairs, bellies filled to nearly bursting. "I haven't eaten like that since I was here last!" 

"Still don't see how you can eat like that and still keep that girlish figure of yours, Knight. How many tapeworms DO you have?" Mosely looked down at his own expanding waistline and frowned. "And how can I get a couple?" 

"My tapeworms have extraordinarily good taste, pal. Guess you're plumb out of luck!" Gabriel smiled and sat forward, leaning on the table. "Mind if I ask you about some stuff?" 

"Why? We've got nothing going on that's gonna interest you right now...no new voodoo killings or anything like that!" Mosely eyed Gabriel suspiciously. "Though that Grace of yours did take off in a hurry a while back.... one day I stopped by the store to chat and the next day she was gone! Anything cool going on with that?" 

"Yeah, she said that you were around a bit. We had another case come up in Germany a while back. Had to deal with this real ball-buster of a cop in Munich to do it, too." Gabriel grimaced at the memory of Kriminalkommisar Leber. 

"Dang... yeah, German cops can be tough. We had a couple come over for this exchange program thing and they almost lost their cool the first day they were here... Franks refused to salute them or get them coffee, as I remember." Mosely laughed to himself, then sat up in his chair a bit. "So what DID you want to ask me about?" 

"Well, I'm looking for someone, but I can't find them in the phone book." Gabriel pulled out his tape recorder and gave Mosely a "do you mind?" look. Mosely rolled his eyes but nodded his assent. "How do you guys go about finding someone when you can't find them in the phone book?" 

"Well, see, we have all sorts of computers to do that sort of stuff for us. Looking up people by last known address, former aliases, stuff like that. But I can't let you use that stuff. Confidentiality and privacy, all that stuff. If it came out that I let a civilian use that stuff for personal business, I don't know what would happen. Shit'd hit the fan, that's for sure." 

"Almost as bad as losing your badge?" Gabriel smirked a bit as Mosely's face turned redder than the spicy cajun food had already made it. "Sorry, low blow."

"And if you may remember, I didn't frickin' LOSE it!" Mosely calmed down a bit but still held a level glare on Gabriel. Gabriel, being fairly used to it, continued. 

"Okay, so I can't use your computers. I wouldn't know where the hell to begin anyway. That's really more Gracie's area." Gabe shifted in his chair, a bit uncomfortable. "How about this - there had to be an accident report taken by the police when my granddaddy died, right?" 

"Yeah, I suppose."

"So could I get a look at that? I mean, it's case-closed and all, right? Plus it happened over 50 years ago..." 

"Well, here's the deal on that. Yes, it's okay... public domain, Freedom of Information Act, and all that jazz. Plus I know you'll pester me until I let you. But I'm not going to waste department time looking for it. So you have to look yourself. And you can't take anything out of the archive area." Mosely sat back again. "Though if I know you, you'll figure something out." 

* * *

"Knight, huh? Name sounds familiar to me." Jesse Price, the archivist for the police department, was checking Mosely and Gabriel in to view the old files. She received the signatures and turned to open the gate for them. She was a 50-something year-old woman and not unattractive. 

"Hmmm...did you read my book - the Voodoo Murders?" Gabriel was not really looking at the archivist, but rather looking at the room behind the locked gate that was separating the two men from the files he needed. 

"Hell, everyone in the department read it!" With a huge smile growing on her face, Price looked at Mosely, who was beginning to redden with embarrassment. "What was the name of that detective in the book..." 

Gabriel grinned. "Ha! I was wondering how you police folks liked that part..." Price unlocked the gate and the two men entered the room. 

"Ugh...this place is worse than I thought it was going to be..." Gabriel looked around the dusty old basement archive and held back another sneeze. "Don't they ever send you down here to clean this place, up, pal?" The basement archive was the size of two handball courts with row after row of shelves, containing all the paperwork data for police cases dating back into the early 1900s. 

Mosely sat down in a worn but comfortable chair at the side of the archivist's desk. He wore a grin that was absolutely priceless. He didn't often get to put Gabriel into the uncomfortable position, and even if it was mean and spiteful he had plenty of catching up to do. 

"Musta been my week off." Mosely's grin grew a little bit, as he turned to the archivist sitting at her desk with a similarly bemused expression on her face. She had just come in and sat down with Mosely. "Now watch this, Price. Knight never once had to look up a book in the library all throughout school. He always sweet-talked some young librarian's assistant into doing it for him. Now let's watch the artist at work..." Mosely turned back to watch Gabriel's search. 

"You know what this reminds me of, pal," Gabriel called out as he combed the aisles looking for the proper year, "is that old Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom TV show. You're that old fart, Marlin Perkins, sitting in the helicopter, while I'm Jim. I'm the handsome one down doing all the work, wrestling the alligator, capturing the elephant, whatever." 

Gabriel walked away from one shelf and over to the next. Looking at the card on the side of the shelf, he found that he was at the row for the year his grandfather had died. "Actually, after watching you eat, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're the elephant." Gabriel smiled slightly at the comment, knowing that it was going to set Mosely's blushing red face into high gear. And right in front of the archivist. Gabriel glanced down the row of shelves to see his friend's face, which was taking on its predicted hue. Unfortunately, the archivist was not at her desk. 

"Ah, just find your damn file, ya wanker." Mosely settled back to watch. He had a clear view of Gabriel down the aisle in front of him. "And as I remember, wasn't Marlin always with some hot little native number in the hut while Jim was doing all the work? So who's the smarter one?"

Gabriel sighed. "Good point." He found the box of files containing his grandfather's case, and pulled a small, wheeled cart over to put the box on while he searched through it. Opening the box, he found the file and began to read it. He looked up, momentarily, as he heard a screech at the end of the room, out of his line of site. It sounded like metal against concrete, so he assumed that the archivist was getting some work done. Mosely looked away toward the sound, too, but not seeing anything, he turned his gaze back to Gabriel. 

"Find it, pal?" Mosely sat up in his chair to get a try to get a better view of what Gabriel was reading. Suddenly, the two men heard a loud crash at the other end of the room, followed by another crash, followed by another. "SHIT!" The detective leapt to his feet and ran down the aisle straight at his friend. Grabbing Gabriel, he tackled him into the aisle away from the rows of shelves. Just in time, too, as the shelves toppled over like dominos, crushing the table that Gabriel had been standing at just an instant earlier.

Gabriel was gasping for breath on the floor, the wind having been knocked out of him by the former football player. "Oh man... thanks bud." Mosely clapped him on the shoulder and looked up to see what had happened. He made his way down the aisle, a gasping and groaning Gabriel behind him trying to get to his feet. 

Mosely stopped short at the sight of Price sitting on the floor, dust from the shelves rising in the dim light. The shelves had fallen away from her. On the fallen shelf directly in front of her were two handprints. She was looking at her hands, covered with dust. The blank look on her face slowly metamorphosed into a look of horror. "Did I..."

"Did you! Question is," sputtered Mosely, "what the hell are you doing!?" 

Gabriel made his way up to view the scene, his wind returned. He stopped short at the sight of Price sitting on the ground with the look of horror on her face. A slow look of recognition slowly crept across his face as he took his first good look at her. "Hey, I know you from somewhere, don't I?" Gabriel racked his brain for a moment before he realized just where. It was thirty-odd years ago, but he'd never forget it. That same dazed look of horror... 

Jesse Price was the girl who had been sitting on the curb at the scene of his parents' accident. 

* * *

"Look, Price, stop crying for a minute..." Mosely was pleading. "You're not under investigation here, this case is closed. My buddy here just wants to ask you a couple questions." 

They were in Mosely's office. If possible, there was even more paper on his desk than usual. The yellow polyester jacket was there, waiting for Mosely to change careers to real estate, and the microwave probably didn't even open anymore. The picture of Annie was still there as well. 

_I'll bet he's still not over her,_ thought Gabriel. _That gal was one of the best things that ever happened to him, and he let it slip away. This obsession with work is starting to make more sense._

He turned his attention to the red-eyed, teary woman in front of him. Unlike Mosely, Gabriel could see that Jesse Price wasn't scared of prosecution, but that something deeper was troubling her. He'd seen that look of years-long pain in his own eyes upon looking in the mirror the morning after many a nightmare-filled night. 

"Jesse," said Gabriel, calmly, "I am not trying to blame you for what happened either today or when my parents died. But I do need to ask you some questions 'bout those days. I know it's going to be hard, it's not easy for me to think about these things, either. But I need to ask you anyway, and I hope that it'll clear up some stuff for both of us." 

Jesse looked up at Gabriel, then Mosely. Gabriel took the visual hint from her. 

"Mostly," said Gabriel, "why don't you go get us a cup o' joe? Or whatever you guys have here that passes for it." 

Normally, such a request would set Mosely off, but Mosely took the hint and started to make his way out of the office. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks. He walked back around to the chair where his jacket was, picked up his badge, then continued on toward the door and exited the office, giving Gabriel a dirty look. 

Gabriel smiled and pulled the chair up next to Jesse. "Okay, let's start with my parents -" 

But before he could continue, Jesse looked up at Gabriel and sputtered "I don't know what happened back then! All I know is that one minute I was riding my bike down the street, and I saw your parents' car. And the next thing you know I was lying on the grass, your parents car was crashed, your grandma was wailing to beat the band, and you were staring into the car with tears running down your face!" The sobs were coming quickly now, the tears even more so. 

"Okay. But do you remember anything else at all? I don't care how weird it sounds. Believe you me, I'm willing to believe just about anything." Gabriel held Jesse's hand to try to comfort her. 

"Well..." started Jesse, pushing the tears aside and trying to regain her composure, "I was riding along, before the accident, and it was like I was paying attention to the road, but I was distracted by something trying to...to push through into my memory... like when you have something on the tip of your tongue, and you're just about to remember it, but then you lose it again? Only it wasn't a memory, it was something else..." Jesse had obviously been thinking about his for quite a while - the words were flowing out of her at a rapid rate. 

_Of course,_ thought Gabriel, _she's probably had years to think about it!_

Jesse was continuing, her voice coming increasingly close to cracking again. "And suddenly, there I was on the grass, and your folks Beetle was a wreck, and you were crying..." Jesse was bawling again. 

"It's okay, let it out." Gabriel put an arm over her shoulder to try to comfort her. He heard a noise at the office door and he looked over his shoulder at Mosely cracking the door open, and looking at the scene inside. Gabriel shook his head at the detective, and Mosely responded by giving the OK symbol, and backing out again. 

"And it was the same thing today!" she continued. "One minute I was talking to Detective Mosely, and the next minute I was sitting on the floor in front of all those shelves, with the dust on my hands! I don't remember pushing the shelves, any more than I remember forcing your folks off the road." 

Gabriel's brow crinkled as he thought for a moment. _It almost sounds like someone was controlling her... _

"Oh, first my grandpa, now me..." Jesse was blubbering in the background. "I'd think you'd hate everyone in my family, Gabriel!" 

Gabriel's ears perked up at this. "What do you mean, your grandpa?" 

Jesse looked up at him. "You mean you don't know? My grandfather was with yours when he died! It's all in the file you found!" 

Gabriel thought a minute longer. "Jesse," he asked, slowly, "what was your grandfather's name?" 

Jesse looked at Gabriel, a river of tears cascading down her face. 

"Well, he changed the spelling of his last name to sound more American during World War II...that's why my name is spelled differently-"

"Please, Jesse," Gabriel interrupted, a feeling of dread crawling like a cold snake up his spine. "I need to know his name."

Jesse whimpered: "Erich Preiss." 


End file.
